Sermon on Luke 6

It’s a pleasure to be with you all this evening. I want to share some reflections on a very short teaching of Jesus from this section called the “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke, which is a slightly shorter cousin to the “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew.

I read from Luke chapter 6, verses 41 to 43.

“And why do you look at the straw in your brother’s eye, yet do not perceive the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the straw out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the log in your eye? Hypocrite, first take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly how to remove the straw from your brother’s eye.”

— — — — —

Surely, when we hear this teaching, we are moved by it: Saying “Yes”. Thank you. This gets at one of the main barriers to peacemaking in our society — all of the hypocrisy and unfairness. The public space is filled with those that accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of. Politicians, the press, people on social media — — We see them accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of. They accuse others of lying, but they lie. They accuse those who want peace of being disruptive and violent, but they themselves uphold a state of violence. The list goes on.

We are surrounded by this — By those who need to take the log out of their eye before casting judgment on others.

— — Do you see how I’ve already inverted the teaching, missing everything? How I so quickly shifted the blame to others, fixating on other people’s hypocrisy. This is what Jesus is addressing.

I’m new to peace work, and so I admit I have much to learn. But it feels like this can happen quite often: that working for peace, for justice, and for all that’s good and right can so often take the form of locating and trying to fix the faults of others. Their ignorance. Their hatred. It’s so easy for us to jump on others’ issues, failing to see the log in our own eyes. It’s more or less automatic, an unconscious mechanism.

Especially in the tribal times we live in. My group, my people — or the people I claim to represent — are wholly good. Our cause is righteous. But the others, they’re the source of division, of evil, of corruption. — — There is this concept in psychology called “Splitting”, also called “black and white thinking”, which can take different forms, but in our case, we take some people, some groups, to be wholly bad, full expressions of vice, and others (probably ourselves and our team) to be wholly virtuous, on the “right side of history”, and so on.

These views may not be wholly wrong; we may see real evil and ignornac — but we just slide into these views, often w/ some level of unconsciousness, missing our own bias, all the things we exclude — — and we end up with so little grace for the other; we only have judgment for them. And so we jump at the opportunity to correct them; to fix them; to point out how their perspective is limited. We feel anxious about re-aligning them with the truth. Ultimately, our desire to make peace is mixed up with our own reactivity and tribalism.

And this just doesn’t work. When people feel judged or disrespected, they hunker down. They foster resentment. How much of our political situation is defined by misunderstanding and resentment?

I do these things. And Jesus asks me: “Why do you do this?” “Do you not see the plank in your own eye?” — — Before we can make peace in the world, we must remove the planks from our own eyes. For our purposes, we might consider these planks to be all of the ways our perception of the world and of others is warped or confused. We see the world through a pair of glasses, as it were, defined by our fears, our sadness, anger, shame — — and underneath these the challenges and pains of our lifetime. Some of these are learned, or come from experience, and some are just a part of being human. I know I’m simplifying things a bit, but we all have these layers to ourselves — — and they’re so difficult to see, at least at first. They’re in our own eyes; they’re mostly unconscious.

But they affect so much, especially how we perceive and interact with others. Every time others make us anxious or upset, we see something in them that stirs up these logs in our eye, and this can be hard to bear.

Jesus offers us a way forward: look within; begin taking the logs out of your eye. We don’t get the “how-to” in this passage, but I firmly believe that we can begin to do this by practicing loving, peaceful presence. Aligning ourselves with God’s peace in our hearts, in our bodies, and in our minds. These logs are ways that separate (or make us feel separated) from God, and so we must with care, allow them to come forward and be drawn back to God.

We can practice this through prayer and meditation, which we’ll be trying a bit of tonight — — and also through personal reflection, through worship, sacrament, engagement with art, or through friendship.

But whatever our means, ultimately it is God’s love, or the kind of intimacy that we can’t help but give the name of “God” — — it’s connection with this power that allows us to look clearly at the logs in our eyes, and to allow them to heal: giving them space and time to unwind. And as we deepen our connection with this power, we align ourselves with peace, and our warped perceptions begin to resolve.

And in turn, we can help others, becoming able to more clearly see the straw in the others’ eye, without judgment, and only with care. We will be able to bear witness to their goodness; to their experience, to their truth, but also to the places they hurt — to their distorted perceptions and to their ignorance. And in this way, helping others heal and come into alignment with the truth.

This finds its absolute expression in love for the enemy, which Jerry talked about last month.

This is the deeply political nature of contemplative spirituality. That prayer and meditation, that is, dwelling in the presence of God, transform how we live together; how we understand our collective life.

Christ, who is Peace, invites us to enter this today.

Amen.